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Forlag Oxford Paperbacks
Utgivelsesår 2008
Format Paperback
ISBN13 9780199536405
Språk Engelsk
Sider 208
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“If it wasn’t for the mist we could see your home across the bay," said Gatsby. "You always have a green light that burns at the end of your dock.
Daisy put her arm through his abruptly but he seemed absorbed in what he had just said. Possibly it had occurred to him that the colossal significance of that light had now vanished forever. Compared to the great distance that had separated him from Daisy it had seemed very near to him, almost touching her. It had seemed as close as a star to the moon. Now it was again a green light on a dock. His count of enchanted things had diminished by one.
F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
Nick Carraway flyttar til New York for å jobba i "bonds," som so mange andre unge menn etter krigen. Det er glitrande dagar, og trass i at det er midt i forbodstida hindrar ikkje det dei store festane og dei store gestane. Og størst av dei alle er naboen hans der utpå Long Island, Jay Gatsby. Gatsby er eit mysterium, men i løpet av ein sommar lærer Nick han å kjenna som ein som har elska og tapt, men aldri gitt opp håpet. Og håpet hans, det er Nick si gifte kusine, Daisy.
I denne boki blandar Fitzgerald alt eg kan tenkja meg kjenneteiknar 20-talet i Amerika. Det er dei nyrike mot dei gamle slektene. Det er ekstrem glede etter ein avslutta krig og veksande økonomi, men for oss som kan lesa med historiens briller ser me forfallet og fortvilinga i den same hektiske feiringa av livet. Det er mafia og smuglarar, blanda med dei mest glamorøse festar. Og det er jakta på den amerikanske draumen, the selfmade man som kjempar for ein plass i sosieteten, og ein plass i livet. Og alt saman i ein prosa som nesten er poesi. F. Scott Fitzgerald slo aldri gjennom i si samtid, men i ettertida vert denne rekna som ein av dei store amerikanske romanane.
F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) fullførte berre fire romanar og ein heil del noveller, men vart likevel ein representant for si tid. Han fann opp uttrykket "Jazz Age," som definerer 20-talet, og vert rekna som ein av The Lost Generation, ei gruppe kunstnarar i eksil. The Great Gatsby vart publisert i 1924, men ikkje populær før etter andre verdskrig (sjølv om fyrste filmatisering vart gjort allereie i 1926). Og The Great Gatsby ber med seg mykje av både håpet og håplausheiten i the lost generation:
Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter—to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And one fine morning——
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
Fyrst publisert her
Det siste avsnittet i «The Great Gatsby» knytter sammen en velskreven, konsis, og hjerteknusende god historie på den mest elegante måten en kan tenke seg. F. Scott Fitzgeralds roman er like filosofisk gripende som den er poetisk nydelig, og forblir ett av det tjuende århundrets aller største kunstverk.
“And I like large parties. They’re so intimate. At small parties there isn’t any privacy.”
The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is stare blankly.
“I’m thirty,” I said. “I’m five years too old to lie to myself and call it honor”
The track curved and now it was going away from the sun which, as it sank lower, seemed to spread itself in benediction over the vanishing city where she had drawn her breath. He stretched out his hand desperately as if to snatch only a wisp of air, to save a fragment of the spot that she had made lovely for him. But it was all going by too fast now for his blurred eyes and he knew that he had lost that part of it, the freshest and the best, forever.
He thinks she goes to see her sister in New York. He's so dumb he doesn't know he's alive.
Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter—to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And one fine morning——
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
“If it wasn’t for the mist we could see your home across the bay," said Gatsby. "You always have a green light that burns at the end of your dock."
Daisy put her arm through his abruptly but he seemed absorbed in what he had just said. Possibly it had occurred to him that the colossal significance of that light had now vanished forever. Compared to the great distance that had separated him from Daisy it had seemed very near to him, almost touching her. It had seemed as close as a star to the moon. Now it was again a green light on a dock. His count of enchanted things had diminished by one.
At least a dozen men, some of them a little better off than he was, explained to him that the wheel and car were no longer joined by any physical bond. "Back out," he suggested after a moment. "Put her in reverse." "But the wheel's off." He hesitated. "No harm in trying", he said.
Most of those reports were a nightmare — grotesque, circumstantial, eager, and untrue.